Phase Two of Path of Exile Beta Promises to Kick Further Ass

If you've heard of Path of Exile, you're probably already neck deep in the beta that's going on now. If you haven't, now is a great chance to jump into the awesome free-to-play action RPG. In a post on the Path of Exile forum, Lead Designer Chris Wilson explained that the patch aims to fix balancing a some bug issues when it goes live on May 29. As Wilson explained, this patch will mark the second part of the game's beta.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Path of Exile was developed by a group of hardcore ARPG fans who were sick of the tumbleweed-ridden ARPG marketplace. It is a top-down RPG with fully randomized environments outside of main areas. The game is ideally supported through microtransactions that involve cosmetic items only. This is an effort by the team at Grinding Gears Games to avoid a common free-to-play model of crippling characters until they've spent some real dough.

The guys at Grinding Gears were able to raise $2.2 million in crowdfunding during a closed beta in January by simply using their site. So if you think you're a hardcore ARPG fan, Path of Exile is definitely worth checking out.

Below is the full list of additions to patch 0.11.0:

More party loot allocation options

Direct melee buffs

Rebalance of monster damage

Improved resync code. The scope of this patch doesn't include the more complex changes to the action prediction system, but will hopefully prevent deaths by resyncing more aggressively when needed.

Some secret awesomeness that Wilson is not able to reveal just yet. It's supposedly bigger than the other changes in the patch.

Path of Exile is an online Action RPG set in the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast. Developed by a small team of hardcore gamers, Path of Exile doesn't pull any punches. With an innovative Skill Gem system, fully randomized maps, and a strong item-based economy, PoE is a love-song to the action RPG genre.